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in your face" at a shop which he describes, and which was standing till the late improvements took place. The rest of the picture is still alive. (Trivia, b. III.)

Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,

Whose straitened bounds encroach upon the Strand;
Where the low pent-house bows the walker's head,
And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread;
Where not a post protects the narrow space,
And strung in twines, combs dangle in thy face;
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care;
Stand firm, look back, be resolute, beware!
Forth issuing from steep lanes, the colliers' steeds
Drag the black load; another cart succeeds;
Team follows team, crowds heaped on crowds appear,
And wait impatient till the road grow clear.

There is a touch in the Winter Picture in the same poem, which everybody will recognise :

At White's the harnessed chairman idly stands, And swings around his waist his tingling hands. The bewildered passenger in the Seven Dials is compared to Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth. And thus we come round to the point at which we began.

Before we rest our wings, however, we must take another dart over the city, as far as Stratford at Bow, where, with all due tenderness for boarding-school French, a joke of Chaucer's has existed as a piece of local humour for nearly four hundred and fifty years. Speaking of the Prioress, who makes such a delicate figure among his Canterbury Pilgrims, he tells us, in the list of her accomplishments, that

French she spake full faire and featously;

adding with great gravity

After the school of Stratforde atte Bowe;
For French of Paris was to her unknowe.

VII.-ADVICE TO THE MELANCHOLY. If you are melancholy for the first time, you will find upon a little inquiry, that others have been melancholy many times, and yet are cheerful now. If you have been melancholy many times, recollect that you have got over all those times; and try if you cannot find out means of getting over them better.

Do not imagine that mind alone is concerned in your bad spirits. The body has a great deal to do with these matters. The mind may undoubtedly affect the body; but the body also affects the mind. There is a re-action between them; and by lessening it on either side, you diminish the pain on both.

If you are melancholy, and know not why, be assured it must arise entirely from some physical weakness; and do your best to strengthen yourself. The blood of a melancholy man is thick and slow; the blood of a

lively man is clear and quick. Endeavour therefore to put your blood in motion. Exercise is the best way to do it; but you may also help yourself, in moderation, with wine, or other excitements. Only you must take care so to proportion the use of any artificial stimulus, that it may not render the blood languid by over-exciting it at first; and that you may be able to keep up, by the natural stimulus only, the help you have given your self by the artificial.

Regard the bad weather as somebody has advised us to handle the nettle. In proportion as you are delicate with it, it will make you feel; but

Grasp it like a man of mettle,

And the rogue obeys you well.

Do not the less, however, on that account, take all reasonable precaution and arms against it, -your boots, &c. against wet feet, and your great-coat or umbrella against the rain. It is timidity and flight, which are to be deprecated, not proper armour for the battle. The first will lay you open to defeat, on the least attack. A proper use of the latter will only keep you strong for it. Plato had such a high opinion of exercise, that he said it was a cure even for a wounded conscience. Nor is this opinion a dangerous one. For there is no system, even of superstition, however severe or cruel in other matters, that does not allow a wounded conscience to be curable by some means. Nature will work out its rights and its kindness some way or other, through the worst sophistications; and this is one of the instances in which she seems to raise herself above all contingencies. The conscience may have been wounded by artificial or by real guilt; but then she will tell it in those extremities, that even the real guilt may have been produced by circumstances. It is her kindness alone, which nothing can pull down from its predominance.

See fair play between cares and pastimes. Diminish your artificial wants as much as possible, whether you are rich or poor; for the rich man's, increasing by indulgence, are apt to outweigh even the abundance of his means; and the poor man's diminution of them renders his means the greater. On the other hand, increase all your natural and healthy enjoyments. Cultivate your afternoon fire-side, the society of your friends, the company of agreeable children, music, theatres, amusing books, an urbane and generous gallantry. He who thinks any innocent pastime foolish, has either to grow wiser or is past the ability to do so. In the one case, his notion of being childish is itself a childish notion. In the other, his importance is of so feeble and hollow a cast, that it dare not move for fear of tumbling to pieces.

A friend of ours, who knows as well as any man how to unite industry with enjoyment,

has set an excellent example to those who can afford the leisure, by taking two Sabbaths every week instead of one, not Methodistical Sabbaths, but days of rest which pay true homage to the Supreme Being by enjoying his creation.

One of the best pieces of advice for an ailing spirit is to go to no sudden extremes-to adopt no great and extreme changes in diet or other habits. They may make a man look very great and philosophic to his own mind; but they are not fit for a being, to whom custom has been truly said to be a second nature. Dr. Cheyne may tell us that a drowning man cannot too quickly get himself out of the water; but the analogy is not good. If the water has become a second habit, he might almost as well say that a fish could not get too quickly out of it.

Upon this point, Bacon says that we should discontinue what we think hurtful by little and little. And he quotes with admiration the advice of Celsus :-that "a man do vary and interchange contraries, but rather with an inclination to the more benign extreme." "Use fasting," he says, " and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, and the like; so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries."

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We cannot do better than conclude with one or two other passages out of the same Essay, full of his usual calm wisdom. "If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be too strange for your body when you need it." (He means that a general state of health should not make us over-confident and contemptuous of physic; but that we should use it moderately if required, that it may not be too strange to us when required most.) "If you make it too familiar, it will have no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I commend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom; for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less."

"As for the passions and studies of the mind," says he, "avoid envy, anxious fears, anger fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated" (for as he says finely, somewhere else, they who keep their griefs to themselves, are "cannibals of their own hearts"). "Entertain hopes; mirth rather than joy;" (that is to say, cheerfulness rather than boisterous merriment ;) " variety of delights rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature."

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VIII.-CHARLES BRANDON, AND MARY QUEEN OF FRANCE.

THE fortune of Charles Brandon was remarkable. He was an honest man, yet the favourite of a despot. He was brave, handsome, accomplished, possessed even delicacy of sentiment; yet he retained the despot's favour to the last. He even had the perilous honour of being beloved by his master's sister, without having the least claim to it by birth; and yet instead of its destroying them both, he was allowed to be her husband.

Charles Brandon was the son of Sir William Brandon, whose skull was cleaved at Bosworth by Richard the Third, while bearing the standard of the Duke of Richmond. Richard dashed at the standard, and appears to have been thrown from his horse by Sir William, whose strength and courage however could not save him from the angry desperation of the king.

But Time, whose wheeles with various motion runne,
Repayes this service fully to his sonne,
Who marries Richmond's daughter, born betweene
Two royal parents, and endowed a queene.

Sir John Beaumont's Bosworth Field.

The father's fate must have had its effect in securing the fortunes of the son. Young Brandon grew up with Henry the Seventh's children, and was the playmate of his future king and bride. The prince, as he increased in years, seems to have carried the idea of Brandon with him like that of a second self; and the princess, whose affection was not hindered from becoming personal by anything sisterly, nor on the other hand allowed to waste itself in too equal a familiarity, may have felt a double impulse given to it by the improbability of her ever being suffered to become his wife. Royal females in most countries have certainly none of the advantages of their rank, whatever the males may have. Mary was destined to taste the usual bitterness of their lot; but she was repaid. At the conclusion of the war with France, she was married to the old king Louis the Twelfth, who witnessed from a couch the exploits of her future husband at the tournaments. The doings of Charles Brandon that time were long remembered. The love between him and the young queen was suspected by the French court; and he had just seen her enter Paris in the midst of a gorgeous procession, like Aurora come to marry Tithonus. Brandon dealt his chivalry about him accordingly with such irresistible vigour, that the dauphin, in a fit of jealousy, secretly introduced into the contest a huge German, who was thought to be of a strength incomparable. But Brandon grappled with him, and with seeming disdain and detection so pummelled him about the head with the hilt of his sword, that the blood burst through the vizor. Imagine the feelings of the queen, when he came

and made her an offering of the German's shield! Drayton, in his Heroical Epistles, we know not on what authority, tells us, that on one occasion during the combats, perhaps this particular one, she could not help crying out, "Hurt not my sweet Charles," or words to that effect. He then pleasantly represents her as doing away suspicion by falling to commendations of the dauphin, and affecting not to know who the conquering knight was;-an ignorance not very probable; but the knights sometimes disguised themselves purposely.

The old king did not long survive his festivities. He died in less than three months, on the first day of the year 1515; and Brandon, who had been created Duke of Suffolk the year before, re-appeared at the French court, with letters of condolence, and more persuasive looks. The royal widow was young, beautiful, and rich and it was likely that her hand would be sought by many princely lovers; but she was now resolved to reward herself for her sacrifice, and in less than two months she privately married her first love. The queen, says a homely but not mean poet (Warner, in his Albion's England) thought that to cast too many doubts

Were oft to erre no lesse

Than to be rash: and thus no doubt The gentle queen did guesse,

That seeing this or that, at first

Or last, had likelyhood,

A man so much a manly man
Were dastardly withstood.
Then kisses revelled on their lips,

To either's equal good.

Henry showed great anger at first, real or pretended; but he had not then been pampered into unbearable self-will by a long reign of tyranny. He forgave his sister and friend; and they were publicly wedded at Greenwich on the 13th of May.

It was during the festivities on this occasion (at least we believe so, for we have not the chivalrous Lord Herbert's Life of Henry the Eighth by us, which is most probably the authority for the story; and being a good thing, it is omitted, as usual, by the historians) that Charles Brandon gave a proof of the fineness of his nature, equally just towards himself, and conciliating towards the jealous. He appeared, at a tournament, on a saddle-cloth, made half of frize and half of cloth-of-gold, and with a motto on each half. One of the mottos ran thus:

Cloth of frize, be not too bold,

Though thou art match'd with cloth of gold.

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IX.-ON THE HOUSEHOLD GODS OF
THE ANCIENTS.

THE Ancients had three kinds of Household Gods, the Daimon (Dæmon) or Genius, the Penates, and the Lares. The first was supposed to be a spirit allotted to every man from his birth, some say with a companion; and that one of them was a suggester of good thoughts, and the other of evil. It seems, however, that the Genius was a personification of the conscience, or rather of the prevailing impulses of the mind, or the other self of a man; and it was in this sense most likely that Socrates condescended to speak of his wellknown Dæmon, Genius, or Familiar Spirit, who, as he was a good man, always advised him to a good end. The Genius was thought to paint ideas upon the mind in as lively a manner as if in a looking-glass; upon which we chose which of them to adopt. Spenser, a deeply-learned as well as imaginative poet, describes it in one of his most comprehensive though not most poetical stanzas, as

-That celestial Powre, to whom the care
Of life, and generation of all

That lives, pertaine in charge particulare;
Who wondrous things concerning our welfare,
And straunge phantomes doth lett us ofte foresee,
And ofte of secret ills bids us beware:
That is our Selfe, whom though we do not see,
Yet each doth in himselfe it well perceive to bee.
Therefore a God him sage antiquity

Did wisely make.-Faerie Queene, book ii. st. 47.

Of the belief in an Evil Genius, a celebrated example is furnished in Plutarch's account of Brutus's vision, of which Shakspeare has given so fine a version (Julius Cæsar, Act 4, Sc. 3). Beliefs of this kind seem traceable from one superstition to another, and in some instances are immediately so. But fear, and ignorance, and even the humility of knowledge, are at hand to furnish them, where precedent is wanting. There is no doubt, however, that the Romans, who copied and in general vulgarized the Greek mythology, took their Genius from the Greek Daimon: and as the Greek word has survived and taken shape in the common word Damon, which by scornful reference to the Heathen religion, came at last to signify a Devil, so the Latin word Genius, not having been used by the translators of the Greek Testament, has survived with a better meaning, and is employed to express our most genial and intellectual faculties. Such and such a man is said to indulge his genius :-he has a genius for this and that art-he has a noble genius, a fine genius, an original and peculiar genius. And as the Romans, from attributing a genius to every man at his birth, came to attribute one to places and to soils, and other more comprehensive peculiarities, so we have adopted

the same use of the term into our poetical phraseology. We speak also of the genius

Plainly I saw them, standing in the light
Which the moon poured into the room that night.

or idiomatic peculiarity of a language. One of And again, after they had addressed him—

the most curious and edifying uses of the word Genius took place in the English translation of the French Arabian Nights, which speaks of our old friends the Genie and the Genies. This is nothing more than the French word retained from the original translator, who applied the Roman word Genius to the Arabian Dive or Elf.

One of the stories with which Pausanias has enlivened his description of Greece, is relative to a Genius. He says, that one of the companions of Ulysses having been killed by the people of Temesa, they were fated to sacrifice a beautiful virgin every year to his manes. They were about to immolate one as usual, when Euthymus, a conqueror in the Olympic Games, touched with pity at her fate and admiration of her beauty, fell in love with her, and resolved to try if he could not put an end to so terrible a custom. He accordingly got permission from the state to marry her, provided he could rescue her from her dreadful expectant. He armed himself, waited in the temple, and the genius appeared. It was said to have been of an appalling presence. Its shape was every way formidable, its colour of an intense black, and it was girded about with a wolf-skin. But Euthymus fought and conquered it; upon which it fled madly, not only beyond the walls, but the utmost bounds of Temesa, and rushed into the sea.

The Penates were Gods of the house and family. Collectively speaking, they also presided over cities, public roads, and at last over all places with which men were conversant. Their chief government however was supposed to be over the most inner and secret part of the house, and the subsistence and welfare of its inmates. They were chosen at will out of the number of the gods, as the Roman in modern times chose his favourite saint. In fact they were only the higher gods themselves, descending into a kind of household familiarity. They were the personification of a particular Providence. The most striking mention of the Penates which we can call to mind is in one of Virgil's most poetical passages. It is where they appear to Æneas, to warn him from Crete, and announce his destined empire in Italy. (Lib. III. v. 147.)

Nox erat, et terris animalia somnus habebat:
Effigies sacræ divûm, Phrygiique Penates,
Quos mecum a Troja, mediisque ex ignibus urbis
Extuleram, visi ante oculos adstare jacentis
In somnis, multo manifesti lumine, qua se
Plena per insertas fundebat luna fenestras.

'Twas night; and sleep was on all living things.
I lay, and saw before my very eyes
Dread shapes of gods, and Phrygian deities,
The great Penates; whom with reverent joy
I bore from out the heart of burning Troy.

Nec sopor illud erat; sed coram agnoscere vultus,
Velatasque comas, præsentiaque ora videbar :
Tum gelidus toto manabat corpore sudor.

It was no dream: I saw them face to face,
Their hooded hair; and felt them so before
My being, that I burst at every pore.

The Lares, or Lars, were the lesser and most familiar Household Gods, and though their offices were afterwards extended a good deal, in the same way as those of the Penates, with whom they are often confounded, their principal sphere was the fire-place. This was in the middle of the room; and the statues of the Lares generally stood about it in little niches. They are said to have been in the shape of monkeys; more likely mannikins, or rude little human images. Some were made of wax, some of stone, and others doubtless of any material for sculpture. They were represented with good-natured grinning countenances, were clothed in skins, and had little dogs at their feet. Some writers make them the offspring of the goddess Mania, who presided over the spirits of the dead; and suppose that originally they were the same as those spirits; which is a very probable as well as agreeable superstition, the old nations of Italy having been accustomed to bury their dead in their houses. Upon this supposition, the good or benevolent spirits were called Familiar Lares, and the evil or malignant ones Larvæ and Lemures. Thus Milton, in his awful Hymn on the Nativity :

:

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint.
In urns and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;
And the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each Peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

But Ovid tells a story of a gossiping nymph Lara, who having told Juno of her husband's amour with Juturna, was "sent to Hell" by him, and courted by Mercury on the road; the consequence of which was the birth of the Lares. This seems to have a natural reference enough to the gossiping over fire-places.

It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance between these lesser Household Gods and some of the offices of our old English elves and fairies. Dacier, in a note upon Horace (Lib. I., Od. 12) informs us, that in some parts of Languedoc, in his time, the fire-place was still called the Lar; and that the name was also given to houses.

Herrick, a poet of the Anacreontic order in the time of Elizabeth, who was visited, perhaps more than any other, except Spenser, with a sense of the pleasantest parts of the

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the painter tells us the story from Pope, who had it from Betterton the actor, one of Davenant's company), it may be carried at once from Dryden to Davenant, with whom he was unquestionably intimate. Davenant then knew Hobbes, who knew Bacon, who knew Ben Fletcher, Chapman, Donne, Drayton, Camden, Jonson, who was intimate with Beaumont and Selden, Clarendon, Sydney, Raleigh, and perhaps all the great men of Elizabeth's and James's time, the greatest of them all undoubtedly. Thus have we a link of "beamy hands" from our own times up to Shakspeare.

In this friendly genealogy we have omitted the numerous side-branches or common friendships. It may be mentioned, however, in order not to omit Spenser, that Davenant resided some time in the family of Lord Brooke, the friend of Sir Philip Sidney. Spenser's intimacy with Sidney is mentioned by himself in a letter, still extant, to Gabriel Harvey.

We will now give the authorities for our intellectual pedigree. Sheridan is mentioned in Boswell as being admitted to the celebrated club of which Johnson, Goldsmith, and others were members. He had just written the School for Scandal, which made him the more welcome. Of Johnson's friendship with Savage (we cannot help beginning the sentence with his favourite leading preposition), the wellknown Life is an interesting record. It is said that in the commencement of their friendship, they sometimes wandered together about London for want of a lodging-more likely for Savage's want of it, and Johnson's fear of offending him by offering a share of his own. But we do not remember how this circumstance is related by Boswell.

Savage's intimacy with Steele is recorded in a pleasant anecdote, which he told Johnson. Sir Richard once desired him, " with an air of the utmost importance," says his biographer, "to come very early to his house the next morning. Mr. Savage came as he had pro

It is a curious and pleasant thing to consider, that a link of personal acquaintance can be traced up from the authors of our own times to those of Shakspeare, and to Shakspeare himself. Ovid, in recording his intimacy with Propertius and Horace, regrets that he had only seen Virgil. (Trist. Lib. IV., v. 51.) But still he thinks the sight of him worth remembering. And Pope, when a child, prevailed on some friends to take him to a coffeehouse which Dryden frequented, merely to look at him; which he did, with great satis-mised, found the chariot at the door, and Sir faction. Now such of us as have shaken hands with a living poet, might be able to reckon up a series of connecting shakes, to the very hand that wrote of Hamlet, and of Falstaff, and of Desdemona.

There

With some living poets, it is certain. is Thomas Moore, for instance, who knew Sheridan. Sheridan knew Johnson, who was the friend of Savage, who knew Steele, who knew Pope. Pope was intimate with Congreve, and Congreve with Dryden. Dryden is said to have visited Milton. Milton is said to have known Davenant; and to have been saved by him from the revenge of the restored court, in return for having saved Davenant from the revenge of the Commonwealth. But if the link between Dryden and Milton, and Milton and Davenant, is somewhat apocryphal, or rather dependent on tradition (for Richardson

Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, and was not willing to inquire, but immediately seated himself with Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with the utmost expedition to Hyde-park Corner, where they stopped at a petty tavern, and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired him to come thither that he might write for him. They soon sat down to the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation, ventured to ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to be brought. They then

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